Author: Guest Post by Rob Skene aka Dreadquill
Sound the hype horn, rev those excitement engines, and fire your anticipation pistols in their air like an old-timey prospector, because the ash wastes are almost here!
With it comes countless opportunities to explore different factions, guilds, organisations and ne’er-do-wells out in the blasted wilderness. The Anvil range has always been my go-to for such vagabonds as my lust for customisation and postal-order bits can rarely be slaked elsewhere. I’m crossing all 14 of my irradiated fingers while I wait for the resin release of the Desert Nomads.
Until I can coerce a local resin printer to do my evil bidding, I must satiate my irrepressible desire to convert by painting up some of my existing projects. I previously put together a Necromunda Promethium Guild delegation using Anvil bits, and after approximately a thousand thinned-down layers of yellow paint, I finally have them finished.
The brief
A few years back I adopted the mantra of ‘finished, not perfect’ to help me clear my backlog of projects. It was through gritted teeth I hissed those optimistic words as I realised I would have to paint both of my least favourite things for this project: fire and flags. Curse you, past me!
I would need to have recipes ready for candles, flames, glow effects and a design for the flag, likely involving some custom heraldry. I resigned myself to my fate, poured myself a tumbler of ‘19 Lahmian Medium, and picked up the brush.
Browned off
I wanted to present the delegation as a group of crusading men-at-arms, fiercely protective of any assets (perceived or otherwise) belonging to their fiery lords. Grubby hassocks, battered metal and knightly heraldry was the order of the day.
I gave them a black primer followed by a dark brown undercoat. I knew the flames and flags would need a lot of attention, so the rest of the minis would be largely drybrushed. A light brown over the robes and silver over the metal, followed by a heavy brown wash did most of the job. Details like the cords and books were picked out with highlights, but otherwise that part was complete.
A silver (and burgundy) platter
I wanted to tie them into an existing promethium-guzzling organisation from our own gaming group, and I’d already noted their heraldry consisted of silver and burgundy. It wasn’t a lot to go on, but after a few late nights deep in a wiki-hole about heraldry I now can pointlessly identify an indented zigzag from a dancetty one.
With a crippling need to assign meaning to things, I decided that both colours represent the spheres of operation for the group - burgundy for sun-baked planes and silver for fields of ice. The black stripe on the flag represents the promethium underneath, and the crowns show the wealth and power they have as a result.
Spark of joy
As much as I grumble about painting fire effects, I do really enjoy it once I get into it. It is intensely time consuming, but the final result is always wonderful.
I’m a big fan of lazy, corner-cutting painting techniques, but I’ve found none that work with fire. I just have to suck it up and layer on the white first, then the yellow on top, then orange, and so on. As it gets to smoke I drybrushed on black, with a tiny touch of grey at the peak to represent the smoke beginning to cool.
As I mentioned in the original design notes, these lads carry round little explosive packs that go off when they’re removed from the board. I wanted to give them an inner glow to give them a sense of barely-contained power. I used a similar painting technique to the flame - starting with yellow in the recesses and blending up through orange and red to the outer areas as it cools.
I copied this across a few other sections of the crew including their helmet eye slits and the leader’s important stick of leadership.
Cooking with gas
Overall I’m very happy with how they came out. They took much longer to paint than I expected, even knowing it would take longer to paint so many flame effects, but I think all the extra time spent mulling over heraldry patterns and glow effects was worth it.
I’m looking forward to trotting these lads out in the wastes later this year. I’m excited for the new book, on top of all the cool new gameplay options it’ll have a host of weird and wacky characters (and vehicles!) that I’ll inevitably want to build miniatures for.
I’ve already got my eye on a trustworthy looking guild merchant who wants to sell my town a new monorail, and I’m counting down the days on my calendar until the jet bike is available in resin. I have a burning desire for a 40k podracer…
The terms Necromunda and Promethium Guild some parts used are copyright Games Workshop®️ and used for example purposes only, this blog post is not associated with or endorsed by GW in any way.
Any views or ideas expressed by the author are their own and not those of Anvil Industry Ltd.
